I asked a local high-school runner and neighbor how her track season was going, and she told me that while she loved to run and loved practices, she hated meets. When I asked why, it summed up to one word — nerves.

The meets made her so nervous that she didn't look forward to them, couldn't enjoy them, and likely, her performance suffered as well. Anxiety and nerves about performance are not specific to the sport of running — imagine a critical golf putt, or a free throw that will win the game, or the quarterback with the clock running down and a need to score. But nerves don't have to overwhelm your performance, and just like you train your body to perform better, you can retrain your thinking to better handle them.

Sport psychology is defined loosely as the study of the psychological and mental factors that influence performance in sports. It is an interesting field that delves into aspects such as motivation, mental toughness, confidence and the ability to cope under pressure. While it is normal and healthy to have some amount of anxiety before a race — and some people actually love that feeling of adrenaline — for some athletes, the anxiety can be immobilizing. Sports psychologists can offer some explanations of why the anxiety can overwhelm, what we can do to tone it down to a manageable level, and maybe even use it as an advantage.

Certain personalities are more prone to be overanxious at race time. If you tend to have extremely high expectations of success and fear failure, then you are potentially setting yourself up for a downward spiral of anxiety, stress and fear. Think about your definitions of success and failure for the race. Is success running faster than your last race? Winning or placing in your age group? Or is it meeting an expectation that someone else set, or beating a particular rival? How about your confidence, do you feel you can meet your goals? And what would it mean to fail?

When you run a race, there is an audience, both present at the race, and viewing the published race results that are around thanks to the internet. Maybe you fear being judged, or care about what others might think of your performance which can lead to doubt. If you doubt your own abilities then it is unlikely that you will run your best race since the thoughts swirling around in your head are telling you otherwise.

I would add one more potential anxiety provoker. What I think is unique about running and other endurance sports is that in order to improve or do well, you have to be able to withstand a certain amount of pain. If you are racing, particularly shorter events, suffering is generally part of the experience, and facing that can make you anxious.

You can begin to see that the race or meet itself is not the cause of anxiety, but instead it is all internal, how the runner views the situation. So, what can be done? Anxiety is often caused by feeling out of control in a situation, so work on controlling as much as you can about race day — run or review the course beforehand, arrive early, with plenty of time to register, settle in and warm up. Create your own race-day rituals that work for you, whether it is playing music, wearing a lucky shirt, or eating the same breakfast. During the race, if those anxious or negative thoughts come to mind, acknowledge them, and let them go, remind yourself that you prepared and are ready. This can also work when you reach painful parts of the race, acknowledge the pain, don't dwell on it, and remember that it is temporary. Racing is not easy, and the pain shows you are putting forth a good effort.

After the race, focus on what went well, regardless of your finish time. Hopefully, you set up multiple time goals for the race ahead of time so you could feel some degree of success. But sometimes things don't go well, regardless of your preparation. Most of us have had bad races. I like the Japanese proverb, 'Fall seven times, stand up eight.' Just get up, and try again. Get ready for that next meet, or sign up for another race. You may learn some specific lessons about this particular race failure that you can work on, or you might not, but you will definitely learn that failure is temporary, and should not feed any new pre-race anxiety or stop you from trying again. It may take many tries to meet your goal, but the only way to find out is to keep at it.

The more you train and race, the more confident you'll become in your ability to handle your anxiety, successes and failures. Whether you are a serious high school runner or an adult recreational runner, you can learn to harness your nervous race energy for what it is meant for, to prepare your body to run a great race.

Running Notes: Next weekend, you'll have trouble deciding which of the many local races to run. On Saturday, Run for the Sol 5K, Portsmouth; Bobcat Bolt 5K and 10K, Durham; Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K, Portsmouth. On Sunday, Margaritas 5K, Exeter; Moms on the Run Mother's Day 5K Run/Walk, Dover. See you out there.

Nancy Eckerson writes about running for Foster's Sunday Citizen. You can reach her at nerunner1@comcast.net.